Pages

The cover of the German edition somehow got me. I like the combined colors, with the roots and waterdrops and dark background. Totally different from the English edition.

The Life I Left Behind*AuthorColette McBethPublisherHeadline Review on August 13, 2015GenreThrillerPages352FormatPaperbackSourcePublisher Goodreads

Six years ago, Melody Pieterson was attacked and left for dead. Only a chance encounter with a dog walker saved her life. Melody´s neighbor and close friend David Alden was found guilty of the crime and imprisoned, and the attack and David´s betrayal of her friendship left Melody a different person. She no longer trusts her own judgment, she no longer trusts her friends. In fact, she no longer really has any friends. She´s built a life behind walls and gates and security codes; she´s cloistered herself away from the world almost entirely. And then, soon after David is released from prison, Eve Elliot is murdered in an attack almost identical to Melody´s. With the start of a new police investigation, Melody is suddenly pulled from her ordered, secluded life and back into the messy world around her. But as she learns more about Eve´s murder, Melody starts to wonder if perhaps David hadn´t betrayed her after all … if perhaps the killer is someone else entirely, someone who´s still out there, preparing to strike again.

Thoughts

I was thrilled after I´ve had read the authors book Precious Thing and was curious to find out if this one would be as thrilling as the other one.

I read this novel in a phase of my life where I literally devoured books written by Nora Roberts. Her way of writing about romance was, back then, totally new to me and it was fascinating to dive into new worlds with her figures and stories.

Kate Hardesty had inherited a dream: a pile of mysterious charts and notebooks, mapping the way to sunken treasure. Determined to complete her late father´s explorations, she returned to the island where she grew up, and hired deep-sea diver Dominic Silver – the man she left behind four years ago. But working with Dominic meant more than searching for gold … it meant finding the priceless treasure Kate hadn´t been looking for.

Thoughts

But you can tell that there is a change of style, tone, and voice in her work.

is a weekly event that was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This meme is a place that spotlights upcoming releases that we´re eagerly anticipating with pure joy.

There are a lot of new books coming out each year and some of them catch my attention and will get a spotlight in my Waiting on Wednesday post. While some of them will finally end up here at my place, others won´t.

One of the few books it took me several attempts before I finally started reading it. And after I was thrilled with The Messenger, this one turned out to be average for me. Sad to say it, but I want to be honest with you.

The HeistAuthorDaniel SilvaGabriel Allon Series #14PublisherHarper Collins on July 15, 2014GenreThrillerPages467FormatHardcoverSourceLibrary Goodreads

Sometimes the best way to find a stolen masterpiece is to steal another one … Gabriel Allon, art restorer, and legendary spy is in Venice when he receives an urgent call from the Italian police. The art dealer Justin Isherwood has stumbled upon a chilling murder scene and is being held as a suspect. The dead man is a fallen spy with a secret – a trafficker in stolen artwork, sold to a mysterious collector. To save his friend, Gabriel must track down the world´s most iconic missing painting: Caravaggio´s Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence. Gabriel´s mission takes him on an exhilarating hunt from Marseilles and Corsica to Paris and Geneva, and, finally, to a private bank in Austria, where a dangerous man stands guard over the ill-gotten wealth of one of the world’s most brutal dictators …

Thoughts

Sure, the way how Gabriel Allon did his work as a spy was fascinating, logical and very well thought through, but the rest?

Grayson Coleman has just moved home to Butler, Vermont after spending years working for a high-powered law firm in Boston. He´s looking for a simpler, less stressful existence in the sleepy little mountain town where he grew up with his siblings and Abbott cousins. Once the holidays are over, he plans to hang out a shingle and open a new general law practice. After helping to raise his seven younger siblings, the last thing on Grayson´s mind is a family of his own. Emma Mulvaney is enjoying a break from her reality as a busy single mother in New York City while she and her adorable daughter, Simone, spend the holidays in Vermont with Emma´s sister, Lucy, and Lucy´s future in-laws, the Abbotts. After meeting Abbott cousin Grayson Coleman and talking to him for hours, Emma is nervous and excited to have dinner alone with him after sharing her deepest, most personal secrets with him. Will that first night be the start of something new for the jaded lawyer and the selfless single mom or will a holiday week flirtation turn into something much bigger than either of them ever expected?

Thoughts

No question, the cover of the German edition is a soft and very feminine one – with all the rose tones in the motive.

is a weekly event that was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This meme is a place that spotlights upcoming releases that we´re eagerly anticipating with pure joy.

There are a lot of new books coming out each year and some of them catch my attention and will get a spotlight in my Waiting on Wednesday post. While some of them will finally end up here at my place, others won´t.

During 2018 I discovered some new-to-me-authors like Mads Peder Nordbo, Brad Parks or Megan Miranda.

I read many more authors but narrowed them down to a list of ten. You might miss the one or the other authors name, but I chose them after the books I´ve read and who impressed me the most.

Reading Holly Black´s The Cruel Prince made me become her fan. It wasn´t my first book written by her, but the one, that convinced me to keep reading her books. At least those that are about The Folk of the Air.

Not sure if I am quite late with my list of the best books I´ve read in 2018 or if I am quite right doing it now.

But for some reasons, I didn´t see a point in creating my list while we still had December and I was still reading books until New Year´s Eve. You never know if the last book you´ve read during the last days of the year is a candidate for the best-books-list or not.

My Best Books of 2018 contains new releases, older books, some I read in English, some in German.